


Chateau d’Yquem

by lucymonster



Category: Marriage Story (2019)
Genre: Closure, Drinking, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, Luxury, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:55:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23270584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucymonster/pseuds/lucymonster
Summary: Nicole and Charlie share a bottle of wine, among other things.
Relationships: Charlie/Nicole (Marriage Story)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 27
Collections: All The Nice Things Flash Exchange 2020





	Chateau d’Yquem

**Author's Note:**

  * For [asuralucier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/asuralucier/gifts).



‘I saw your episode last night,’ Charlie says.

It’s well past drop-off time. Henry is sound asleep in his bed, and a bottle of cheap Riesling is collecting condensation on Nicole's coffee table. Left over from a raucous girls’ night, she's pretending, as she pours what’s left into an Ant-Man-themed plastic tumbler for Charlie. She’s been blissfully alone and pantless on the couch since four pm this afternoon. Shared custody has its bright spots, but they’re not the ones she likes to attach to her public image.

‘What did you think?’

‘You were outstanding. It reminded me of–’

‘ _Look Back in Anger_ , right? I was remembering our workshops while I was filming.’

‘I thought you might have been.’ Charlie smiles. It’s a tight smile, made tighter by his first sip of budget wine, and Nicole instantly detects the critique he’s holding trapped behind closed teeth. Some things never change. It’s strange – she’s worked so hard to cultivate her distance, but she can’t un-know this man.

‘Spit it out,’ she says.

‘Spit what out?’

‘You know it’ll eat you alive if you don’t tell me.’ Maybe it should sting that he’s still picking at her even now. But he’s been watching her show – he, Charlie, joyless theatre snob, has been taking time out of his bustling UCLA schedule to watch her show – and that’s already so out of character, she’s relieved he’s at least still finding fault.

Charlie takes a gulp and makes a face. ‘The love scene was wooden. No vulnerability, no passion, no chemistry – you were holding back, and it showed.’

‘I was not holding back.’

‘Yes, you were. I’ve never seen you look less aroused.’

‘Well, I wasn’t aroused. I told the writers there was no way in hell my character would go to bed with a creep like Jack. If I had to do it then I wanted it to look like a bad match.’

‘In that case, I retract my criticism. You achieved your vision masterfully. It was the least erotic sex I’ve ever seen.’

Nicole catches herself on the edge of several biting comebacks at once. She doesn’t mean any of them, or wouldn’t, if she hadn’t had so much Riesling. Her ex-husband has been watching her fuck on TV and getting worked up about the fact that she doesn't look like she enjoys it enough. That’s a fraught conversation she's not feeling ready to have tonight, so she drinks more wine.

Charlie copies her, throat bobbing as his lips skim the top of Ant-Man’s plastic helmet. She’s not sure why she invited him in tonight. The Riesling would have lasted in the fridge – it’s not like it had far to fall in terms of quality. But as he’d handed Henry over at the doorstep, something inside Nicole had leapt into action without bothering to justify itself to her. She’d been happy to see him. Hadn’t wanted him to leave.

‘Maybe I’m a little out of practice,’ she says at last, shrugging.

‘At sex?’ His expression doesn’t change as she nods. ‘What happened to that guy you were seeing? Pete, Phil–’

‘Paul. He didn’t get on well with Henry. That’s a deal-breaker.’

‘Henry comes first,’ Charlie agrees. He frowns at the tumbler in his too-large hands, studying the wine's pale surface as though looking for answers. 'Dating's not easy when you're a parent, is it? No one ever seems to love your kid as much as you want them to.'

Nicole takes that to mean that Charlie's on a dry spell, too.

She shouldn't dwell on it. Charlie's sex life is none of her business any more. Realistically, it was none of her business for a whole year or so before they even talked about divorce. When things between them were really bad, she'd felt sick at the thought of him touching her body. Layers of emotional grime had built up on top of their chemistry until she couldn't remember what colour it was. Time and space have washed it cleaner. Charlie's in the same good shape as ever, with his bright dark eyes and the shaggy hair that she always loved running her fingers through.

'I need more wine,' she says.

'I'm driving,' Charlie says. The sour pucker around his mouth says: _I'm not sure how much more of this swill I can drink._

'You can stay the night. On the couch, I mean.' Maybe she means on the couch. She _should_ mean on the couch. 'Henry would be happy to see you in the morning. Also - I've been looking for an excuse to open this.'

The bottle was a gift from her producer after her Emmy nomination. Chateau d'Yquem. When Charlie sees the label, she knows she has him.

It’s well matured, intense and subtly spicy, its colour refracting beautifully off the crystalware she feels obliged to retrieve from the top cupboard in its honour. They sit just a little too close on the sofa and clink their glasses in a silent ceremony Nicole remembers from their courtship days. For a disorienting moment, she could almost convince herself nothing has changed.

She does succeed in convincing herself that he's staying on the couch through the whole first glass and most of the second. By the time she pours the third, she's buzzing with awareness that they never did the closure thing. You know. The thing where you hook up with your ex to remind yourself why you're better off apart. Is it really such a big deal if they sleep together tonight? They've slept together hundreds of times. They've shared all of each other's bodies. They have a kid. It feels _right._

It doesn't have to mean anything.

The wine is delicious in the glass, but it tastes like heaven in Charlie's mouth.


End file.
